Argument Against Human Cloning

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In 1997, the first clone of a sheep named Dolly was created. This embryo had a success rate of one to four percent. When applied to humans, this percentage may decrease and become lower and more unpredictable. With lives at stake, is it worth the risk of the embryos involved in the unstable process? Although cloning may allow for new medical procedures and research of diseases and cures, it takes away from the natural biological order of life, and allows humans to "play God" while creating a margin of error which could result in many defects.
Many ethical and moral dilemmas arise when discussing human cloning, and one can have many positions for and against each. To understand the issues surrounding human cloning, one must have a basic idea of what the process is and how it affects people's lives. Cloning is asexual reproduction where the being would not be any other relative to a person, but a new form of relation as a clone (F). Cloning is a process through which a genetically identical twin is formed from a person's DNA (I). The process of cloning begins when a donor cell is taken and the DNA is extracted from it (I). Then the nucleus from the organism that is being cloned is inserted (I). The cell is now combined with the DNA and the cell form; the cell is then inserted into the egg (I). It is then stimulated by electrical or chemical means to force division and becomes an embryo (I). Lastly, the embryo is implanted into a surrogate in the same process as artificial insemination (I). Since the cloning of Dolly, "gradual improvements in cloning technology have enabled researchers to generate mouse, cattle, goat, pig, deer, rabbit, cat, mule, and horse clones" (A). No evidence supports human cloning, but researchers have obt...

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...Framework for Understanding the Thinning of a Public Debate." Playing God?: Human Genetic Engineering and the Rationalization of Public Bioethical Debate. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2002. 12-13. Print.
Farnsworth, Joseph. "To Clone or Not to Clone: The Ethical Question." To Clone or Not to Clone: The Ethical Question. N.p., 7 Apr. 2000. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
"Human Cloning." Human Cloning. American Medical Association, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
MacKinnon, Barbara. "Human Cloning: Never and Why Not." Human Cloning: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2000. 100. Print.
"The Pros and Cons of Human Reproductive Cloning." Biotechnology | Home. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Agency, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
Smith, Simon. "All The Reasons To Clone Human Beings." HumanCloning.org. Human Cloning Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

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